What dangers are there, if any, in advancing a student too soon? This is one of those lessons that I learned the hard way. There are a lot of disadvantages to advancing students too quickly. Here are some of them: they often struggle with complex rhythms in the harder pieces technique skills don’t match the […]
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Kick-It-Up-A-Notch! a one-week intensive piano course Materials Are Available!
After hours of writing, working, testing, tweaking, re-designing, and implementing, I am excited to announce that the Kick-it-up-a-Notch! a one-week intensive piano course package is now available! This course is specifically designed for middle school and high school students who are serious about music. In order for students to participate, I required them to commit […]
And the Winners Are…
Six Music Matters Blog readers will be the excited new owners of one of two cool music apps! The winners of the drawing are as follows: #24 – Bethany #19 – Genevieve #27 – Anna #7 – Lacy #32 – Kristi #12 – Wendy M Congrats to all of you! I’m going to give away […]
Visit Music Museums Without Leaving Your Studio!
Anyone traveling to any cool places this summer? Will you be checking out any museums while you’re there? There’s so much to be learned by visiting museums and exploring the exhibits! That’s one reason I was really excited to come across this Virtual Museums post by About.com’s Music Education editor, Espie Estrella. Here are a […]
Monday Mailbag – Letting Students Go
I need to let 5-6 of my 21 students go for next fall. How do I tell the parents of those I’m choosing not to teach next year? The ones I’m cutting are the students who don’t practice. I love the families, the kids, and especially the moms. We are good friends and I don’t […]
Do You Have an Adjective List?
I don’t actually know how I ended up on the 3-D Piano e-newsletter list, but an article in the recent issue caught my attention – Imagery, Emotion, and Imagination: Cultivating vibrant performance through descriptive adjectives and metaphors. This is a concept I’ve heard before, but I’ve never tried it out to this extent with my […]
